Transcribed from Progress Texas’ Daily Dispatch Podcast, click here to listen.

TEXAS — Yet another “where to start” morning. A great many of our listeners here at Progress Texas are directly involved in progressive politics. We’re proud to count elected officials and their staffers, candidates, folks who work for advocacy organizations, people who have in many cases devoted their lives to resisting the conservative undermining of the basic dignity of our country as the primary thing they do. We also are proud to have a lot of folks listening who have been inspired by our messages and similar ideas from others to get more involved—showing up to rallies, showing up to school board meetings, contributing time and treasure to candidates and causes, in some cases simply committing to voting at every opportunity. 

The news from Minneapolis, Minnesota involving the fatal shooting at close range of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Macklin Good by a masked ICE agent has reached many of us like a warning. The Minnesota Star Tribune has identified the ICE agent who killed Renee Nicole Macklin Good as Jonathan Ross, a deportation officer based out of ICE’s field office in St. Paul. For many of us here in Republican-dominated Texas, yesterday’s news isn’t just another headline from a distant city many of us have never visited. It is rather a scenario in which many of us have imagined ourselves. Yesterday’s news feels like a personal threat, and for those of us who see it for what it is, it’s a source of profound grief.

Who was Renee Nicole Macklin Good?

The Associated Press writes that she was a 37-year-old mom with three kids, a U.S. citizen, born in Colorado. In her social media she described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom” currently “experiencing Minneapolis,” displaying a Pride flag emoji on her Instagram account. Her Pinterest profile picture shows her smiling and holding a young child against her cheek, her posts about tattoos, hairstyles, and home decorating. 

Her ex-husband was reached by the AP, and asked not to be named out of concern for the safety of their children. He told them that Renee had just dropped off her 6-year-old son at school and was driving home with her current partner when they encountered that group of ICE agents on a snowy street near their new home in Minneapolis, where they had moved just last year from Kansas City. He told AP reporters that Renee Nicole Macklin Good was not even an activist, that he had never known her to participate in a protest of any kind. He described her as a devoted Christian who took part in youth mission trips to Northern Ireland when she was a kid. 

She loved to sing, participating in a chorus in high school and studying vocal performance in college. She studied creative writing at Old Dominion University in Virginia and won a prize in 2020 for one of her works, according to a post on the school’s English department Facebook page. She hosted a podcast with her second husband, who died a couple of years ago in 2023. 

Renee Nicole Macklin Good had a daughter and her son from her first marriage, who are now ages 15 and 12. Her 6-year-old son was from her second marriage. In her life, she was never charged with any crime beyond a traffic ticket—but for those who are buying what Donald Trump and his machine are selling, Renee Nicole Macklin Good was a domestic terrorist. Think about what that means: every MAGA elected official in this country would have you believe that Renee Nicole Macklin Good arrived on that street in Minneapolis in her Honda Pilot with the intent to kill federal officials as part of a broader effort to destroy America by inciting terror among her fellow citizens. This line was adopted immediately across the board by a propaganda machine of tremendous efficiency, in spite of multiple camera angles springing from every screen in this country plainly showing the ridiculous folly of that narrative. 

Renee Nicole Macklin Good was also allowed to bleed out in her car as ICE agents refused to allow a bystander with medical training to help her. The ICE agent who shot her in the face was whisked from the scene within three minutes of those shots. The chances of that man ever being identified seem slim, the chances of his arrest more slim, the chances of a conviction that sticks, as long as the Republicans are in control, are close to zero. If Renee Nicole Macklin Good, at worst passively resisting the presence of masked federal goons in her neighborhood, can be shot to death in broad daylight in view of multiple cameras amidst a crowd of witnesses and justice still appear an impossibility, it’s not a reach to say that something just as bad can happen much more quietly to me, or to you, or to any of us who might get in the way. 

Renee Nicole Macklin Good was one of us: a neighbor, a legal observer, a woman with a whistle and a camera who believed that the vulnerable should not have to face the machinery of the state alone. Seeing her life snuffed out on a snowy residential street—and then seeing her character assassinated by federal officials before her family could even begin to understand or grieve—strikes at the very heart of the "protected" status we often assume our citizenship or our activism provides. ICE is not present to protect anyone: they are here to terrorize.

How does this relate to Texas?

Dragging this back to Texas, we live in a state where the boundaries between federal, state, and local enforcement are being intentionally blurred. Parts of Texas are already desensitized to daily encounters with burly military types in masks. This comes after years of Operation Lone Star, and sightings of ICE patrols becoming more and more common in both our major cities and our rural communities. Assuming that what happened to Renee Nicole Macklin Good could happen on your street is no longer paranoia, it’s a rational assessment of the current political climate.

For many of us engaging in active and vocal protest, the fear of arrest is developing into  a fear of being actively targeted. The speed with which Republican officials trotted out the “domestic terrorist” label for Renee Nicole Macklin Good tells us that they’ll do that for us too, should it become convenient or expedient. To see a legal observer killed while performing a role meant to ensure law enforcement accountability is a stark shattering of what we’ve been taught are the "rules of engagement." For some among us this will be too much - they’ll shut it down and go home. And frankly, at this moment it’s all too understandable and fair to be afraid. It is natural to consider the shelter of silence, and if you’re truly engaged, of course you wonder if the risk has become too great.

But remember this: the goal of these aggressive tactics is to induce what we’d call political paralysis. They want the fear of meeting a fate like the one Renee Nicole Macklin Good met yesterday to keep you off the streets, off the socials, and away from your neighbors' doors. They want you to feel isolated in your sorrow, but the antidote to that sorrow is solidarity, and that’s not just a sentiment; it’s a defensive strategy. 

Instead of giving up and backing down, we opt for organized resilience. We can best honor Renee Nicole Macklin Good not by retreating, but by resolving to work more closely with the millions of us in agreement - thousands of whom took to the streets in Minneapolis and New York and Seattle and Chicago last night, and thousands more who will do the same in days to come. Individuals can be targeted, yes—but there is still strength in numbers. In Texas, we have a long, proud history of standing our ground. Renee Nicole Macklin Good was in that place, at that moment, because she knew that watching and witnessing matters. We can honor her sacrifice by refusing to back down, refusing to look away and refusing to shut up as long as the country, state and neighborhoods we love remain under attack.

What’s Next:

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